September 2011

September 26, 2011

General Description: This is a new position based on the ongoing growth of our St. Louis client. We’re looking for an experienced branding and marketing communications executive who commands the respect of the client with their attitude, talent, experience and brain. We need someone with agency leadership as well as account and operational management experience. We’re looking for someone who can help lead our clients through the nuances of strategic brand positioning based on research, and very smart thinking resulting in exquisitely executed creative. We’re looking for indefatigable energy, enthusiasm and an entrepreneurial spirit . . . We want you to help nurture the existing staff and help grow that staff and the company.

Primary Responsibilities: • Act as primary client liaison through the development of client strategy and resulting appropriate project executions, including budget and timeline oversight. • Be responsible for managing the activity of account teams. This activity includes generating sales, project design (creative), administration, presentations and cost control. • Monitor and mentor performance, capacity and growth of client service teams and be responsible for each client’s business to manage revenue, profitability and organic growth targets. • Increase the level of agency services and provide key marketing advice to internal brand managers and top client management. • Increase the visibility of agency and its services among the key prospective client categories and executives. • Conduct and/or supervise research and deliver sales presentations; write proposals, brand positioning statements and the occasional brief. • Develop new business acquisition strategy with agency Principals to expand client base and consistently continue agency growth. • Participate on Executive Team for planning Company initiatives and growth strategy. • Travel as necessary in support of client activities (~20%)

Experience:The ideal candidate must have a superb track record with at least 15 years of senior level client management experience and internal executive level operations experience in an agency and/or client environment. We need specific experience with research based brand positioning, identity creation or refreshing for both B2C and B2B category leading clients, including non-profits. We expect a degree in marketing or closely related field, and we would prefer an MBA. We need a person who has successfully managed teams of employees, if not entire offices or companies. The candidate will have experience working across all forms of media: print, broadcast, promotion, online, direct and environmental design and have experience working closely with creatives.

The ideal candidate will possess keen analytical skills, is a strong decision maker and is results oriented. Strong interpersonal skills along with both written and verbal communication expertise are required. It’s essential you be team-oriented and proactive, as these attributes are intrinsic to the overall culture and success of the agency. We need a strategic account professional with personality and style, and who understands “thinking big”. You’ve always lead by example and have more of a global perspective and awareness of best practice branding and marketing communication tactics.

Compensation: Compensation will be commensurate with experience and designed to attract premier candidates. There is no “glass ceiling”! The compensation is based on a salary, with performance based bonus and additional incentives possible. That base compensation is coupled with an outstanding benefits package including medical, life and disability insurance and a 401K with a company match. This is an outstanding opportunity for significant financial success, career longevity, and ongoing professional and personal growth. There is no relocation package being provided.

About Our Client: Our client started with one employee 18 months ago and now has six. They are consistently winning new business, because they are smarter in their strategy and insights, while delivering best in class creative for their clients’ benefit. They are creating a collaborative culture based on smart thinking, the highest quality execution and a company culture that values collaboration and respect for colleagues, clients and family. The diverse client base includes category leaders in entertainment, construction, education, healthcare and non-profits. EOE

September 15, 2011

This article by John Zappe, originally appeared in ere.net daily (a blog for recruiters), earlier today. I thought that in view of the ongoing employment crisis, it would be useful for job seekers to know about this new tool. I've always recommended to people looking for their next opportunity to keep their eye on Indeed.com. It'll be interesting to see if this new feature dilutes, or enhances the site. Read the comments, there are interesting thoughts about privacy!

Taking the next logical step in its evolution from job search engine to job board, Indeed today unveiled its resume search service.

The carefully planned launch had been scheduled to occur tomorrow, but an error in distributing the press release forced the company to lift the embargo it had placed on bloggers, analysts, and others who got a preview of the service earlier this week.

It’s a straightforward search, identical in most regards to the site’s job search. It is keyword based, though it will accept some Boolean and Google query types. Searches can be easily narrowed by simply selecting from a menu on the left that shows up on results pages.

Searching and reviewing resumes is free and will remain that way. But contacting the candidates — free for now — will eventually cost. How much, said Chris Hyams, Indeed’s VP of Product, who piloted the demos, won’t be released for a while.

For now, the “goal is to introduce the system to as many people as possible,” said Hyams.

Job seekers will appreciate the simplicity of the system. It accepts all forms of resumes and will import a user’s LinkedIn profile. Users can elect to keep the resume private and not findable in a search, or make it public. In the latter case, the contact information is stripped out. Employers use a form to contact the job seeker, who decides whether or not to respond. Job seekers can also apply to jobs they find on Indeed with their resume.

The interface, said Hyams, was designed for ease of use. “We always start with the question: What is best for the job seeker?”

Since Indeed began collecting resumes several months ago it was only a matter of time before the site offered resume search. After more than a million resumes, the time, obviously, has come.

Even Hyams more or less joked about the resume service being an open secret, especially to the job boards whose relationship with Indeed can best be described as “frenemy.”

“This is not going to be an earth-shattering surprise,” Hyams said earlier this week during a preview.

Pardon the pun, but indeed it isn’t. There’s been no response from the job boards, nor is it likely any of them will have much to say publicly. Many of them are Indeed customers, buying PPC ads to drive traffic to their own sites. Many of them, though far fewer these days, depend on Indeed to distribute their own listings to a broader market.

September 08, 2011

The first half of this year exhibited many signs of economic improvement, including increasing hiring activity in the regional marketing industry. Now that Summer's "officially" over as of last weekend, we have President Obama making a major speech on the economy and job creation this evening. We're obviously not out of the woods yet. Unemployment runs high and many are frustrated. I found this excellent article with ideas on job hunting. I wanted to share it with those of you who need a little new inspiration and/or direction!

This article was written by Jessica Stillman and originally published online on the BNET blog:

"Forget CareerBuilder, HotJobs, and all the other mass job sites. While these boards seem like a good place to start, how many people do you know who actually found a job that way? Even hiring managers don’t want to sort through the hundreds and hundreds of resumes they get for each position they list on these sites, so they’re increasingly turning to industry-specific job portals, says Debra Yergen, author of Creating Job Security."

And Zimmerman isn’t the only person pointing out that job boards are often a waste of time. Everyone from the WSJ to Ask the Headhunter’s Nick Corcodolis has written posts advising that there are probably more productive ways to spend most of your job search hours. But if job boards are on the wane, how are companies and recruiters finding people to hire? And how can you best position yourself to be found?

Writing on recruiting blog Fistful of Talent recently, Kelly Dingee, a “professional stalker” with Staffing Advisors, lets the cat out of the bag and offers up seven things employers should tell job seekers about how to get considered. Dingee isn’t convinced job boards are totally over saying, “there will be people looking for you on there. At least for a little while longer.” But overall Dingee agrees with consensus opinion that too much time on job boards isn’t productive and offers tips to help you get hired in a post-job board world, including old standbys like networking — “Find someone who works at your targeted company who can pass your resume along” — as well as less well known advice:

Make yourself findable first. Google yourself right now. Did your LinkedIn profile come up? No? Build one, make it public. If you have a preferred method of contact, note it. Use inmails. Use a separate email.

Make yourself even more findable. Post your resume, or your bio, or whatever you want to call it. Use Posterous, use WordPress, use a .me site, use doctoc or slideshare… use something.

Make sure when you build those profiles you use every keyword that applies to you. I like to say I’m a researcher but my title is Strategic Recruiting Manager… and if I was anticipating a job hunt and tweaking my profile I’d make sure every word related to recruiting and research both are enmeshed in my online profile.

Respond to recruiters. Third party or corporate I don’t care. If you don’t deal with contingency staffing firms, fine, send ‘em a quick note of thank you/no thank you, get removed from their mailing list. But do your due diligence, because you want to work with a retained search firm…. There’s a significant difference between retained and contingency search firms. You can go around me and apply directly through our client, but they are still going to route you my way because our firm has been hired — and already paid — to alleviate their staffing burden."

LinkedIn is a valuable tool, and is used by both internal and third party recruiters as their "go to" database for identifying possible hires. It's worth your while (it's essential) that you build out your LinkedIn Profile with as much detail, as possible. My suggestion is to get several recommendations from your superiors, or clients.